Education/Educational Institution:
Admission – Management course – Application by institution seeking extention of approval of existing seats and for increase in seats – All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) granted extention while did not communicate anything about increase in seats – After exchange of correspondence between the parties, AICTE rejected the prayer for increase in seats – In the meantime, the institution had already admitted students in excess of the seats – Institution filed writ petition challenging order of AICTE rejecting increase in seats – During pendency of the petition AICTE imposed penalty of Rs. 23 crores for admission of 42 students in excess of the permissible seats – Held: Action of the institution in granting admission to the students beyond sanctioned seats was illegal and contrary to law – AICTE is empowered to impose the penalties for excess admission, as prescribed in Approval Process Handbook (2016– 2017) of AICTE – Penalty being only financial penalty is rather very light penalty and hence not unjustified – However, admission of students are not set aside.
Disposing of the appeal, the Court
HELD : 1. The action of the petitioner in granting admission to the students beyond the seats sanctioned, is totally illegal and contrary to law. Even assuming that the decision of the AICTE was not correct, the petitioner institution had no business to admit students beyond the number permitted by the AICTE. In case the petitioner institution felt that the AICTE was delaying the matter or was not acting fairly, the proper course for the petitioner was to have approached this Court and prayed for appropriate relief. The petitioner could not take the law into its own hand and grant admission to students in excess of the seats permitted by the AICTE. The admission of the students are not set aside because that action would be too harsh upon the students who should not suffer for the totally illegal action of the petitioner institution. [Paras 7 and 8] [791-D-G]
2. The Approval Process Handbook (2016-2017) of the AICTE provides the penalties in case excess admissions are carried out. The AICTE can impose any one or more of the prescribed penalties. In the present case, the AICTE has only imposed the financial penalty which is the first penalty prescribed. It is the admitted case of the petitioner that it was charging Rs.11,00,000/- as fees for the entire course from each student. In terms of Clause 3.1 of Chapter IV of Approval Process Handbook, 5 times penalty for each student works out to Rs.55,00,000/- and for 42 students it works out to Rs. 23,10,00,000/-, which is the penalty imposed by the AICTE. The AICTE has no discretion to award a lesser penalty and, in fact, the petitioner has been let off lightly since only one penalty has been imposed whereas the AICTE could have imposed more than one penalty prescribed. However, it is made clear that the amount of Rs.4,00,00,000/-, which is deposited, shall be adjusted towards the penalty and the petitioner is directed to deposit the balance amount of Rs.19,10,00,000/- with the AICTE within 8 weeks from the date of the judgment, failing which AICTE shall be at liberty to take appropriate action in accordance with law. [Para 10] [791-H; 792-A, E-H]
Parshvanath Charitable Trust v. AICTE (2013) 3 SCC
385 : [2012] 11 SCR 1057 - referred to.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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